union, labor, association of workers for the purpose of improving their economic status and working conditions through collective bargaining with employers. Historically there have been two chief types of unions: the horizontal, or craft, union, in which all the members are skilled in a certain craft (e.g., the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America); and the vertical, or industrial, union, composed of workers in the same industry or industries regardless of their particular skills (e.g., the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America). A company union is an employer-controlled union having no affiliation with other labor organizations.

In Great Britain

Although there were associations of journeymen under the medieval system of guilds, labor unions were essentially the product of the Industrial Revolution. In Great Britain after the French Revolution, fear of uprisings by the working classes led to passage of the Combination Acts, declaring unions illegal. Although those acts were repealed (1824), little progress was made in union growth until the organization of miners and textile workers in the 1860s, after which the struggle for legal recognition was waged with vigor. After the Trade Union Act of 1871, British labor unions were guaranteed legal recognition, although it required the laws of 1913 and 1915 to assure their status. In the latter part of the 19th cent. the socialist movement made headway among trade unionists, and James Keir Hardie induced (1893) the trade unions to join forces with the socialists in the Independent Labour party (see Labour party). The central organization of the British trade unions, the Trades Union Congress was formed in 1868 to coordinate and formulate policy on behalf of the whole labor movement.

On the Continent

Labor unions developed differently on the Continent than they did in Great Britain and in the United States, mainly because the European unions organized along industrial rather than along craft lines and because they engaged in more partisan political activity. In Germany the printers' and cigarmakers' unions were started after the uprisings of 1848; German unions until World War I were responsible for much social legislation. In France labor unions were organized in the early part of the 19th cent. but received no legal recognition until 1884. In most European countries labor organizations either are political parties or are affiliated with political parties, usually left-wing ones. In some European countries, notably Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands, there are rival Christian and Socialist trade-union movements. In Russia, trade unions first appeared on a considerable scale in the revolution of 1905 but were later stamped out. They reappeared in the 1917 revolution and became highly organized in a national movement under Communist control. Between the revolution and fall of the Communist party in 1991, the trade-union movement in the Soviet Union was mainly an instrument of the state in its drive for higher industrial production.

In the United States

Early Years to the AFL-CIO

In the United States unionism in some form is almost as old as the nation itself. Crafts that formed local unions in the late 18th and early 19th cent. included printers, carpenters, tailors, and weavers. Their chief purpose was to keep up craft standards and to prevent employers from hiring untrained workers and importing foreign labor. From 1806 there were numerous prosecutions by employers of unions as combinations in restraint of trade. The early 1830s, a period of industrial prosperity and inflation, was a time of union development; however, the financial Panic of 1837 halted this growth. After the Civil War, in 1866, the National Labor Union was formed; it had such objectives as the abolition of convict labor, the establishment of the eight-hour workday, and the restriction of immigration, but it collapsed with its entry into politics in 1872.

Among the most important of the early national organizations was the Knights of Labor (1869-1917), organizing among both skilled and unskilled workers. That policy brought them into conflict with the established craft unions, who joined together to form the American Federation of Labor (AFL; see American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) in the 1890s under Samuel Gompers. The Knights, thereafter, declined in numbers and effectiveness. The leaders of the AFL opposed the entry of the federation into politics. In 1905 a huge, unwieldy but militant industrial body arose—the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It concentrated on unskilled workers—lumbermen, migrant workers, and miners. With the conviction of most of its leaders under the Espionage Act during and after World War I, IWW membership shrank, and the organization became ineffective in the 1920s.

During the depression of the 1930s, unions experienced a rapid growth in membership. At this time the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed; it was made up at first of dissident unions of the AFL and was led by John L. Lewis. During the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, steps were taken to restore seriously deteriorated standards of employment and to facilitate the development of trade-union organization. The accomplishment of those goals were sought through the passage of such acts as the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935, an enactment that enlarged the rights of unions and created the National Labor Relations Board, and by protective labor legislation such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) and the Social Security Act (1935). There were often severe conflicts between the AFL and the CIO during the 1930s and 40s. It was therefore considered a momentous step when in 1955 the two labor groups merged to form the AFL-CIO. The AFL, the larger of the two organizations, was given a proportionate share of the offices of the new federation, and its president, George Meany, was unanimously elected president of the combined body. Industrial unions of the CIO were given a department of their own within the merged organization.

The Late 1950s to the Present

The AFL-CIO issued a series of ethical-practice codes to govern the behavior of union officers and expelled the Teamsters for corruption in 1957. Nevertheless the entire labor movement found itself on the defensive in the late 1950s, following the disclosures made by the Senate Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field (popularly known as the McClellan Committee); the committee exposed such abuses as collusion between dishonest employers and union officials, extortions and the use of violence by certain segments of labor leadership, and the misuse of funds by high-ranking union officials. As a result of the findings of the McClellan Committee, the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959 was enacted to correct abuses in labor-management relations.

Since World War II, U.S. unions have undergone a period of decline. In 1960 one third of all American workers belonged to a union, but by 2003 the proportion had dropped to less than 13%. Faced with foreign competition and financial troubles in its traditional power base—manufacturing and mining—organized labor was hurt in the 1980s by layoffs and was, in many cases, forced to accept reduced wages and benefits. In response, many unions adopted a more conciliatory attitude, reducing the number of strikes to record lows in the 1980s and early 90s, and attempting to negotiate contracts providing job security for members. Unions have also placed greater emphasis on organizing drives for new members. Although unions have been very successful in organizing government employees, they have been less successful with recruiting office workers in the rapidly expanding services sector. Another problem is demographic: The fastest growing parts of the labor force (women, service industries, and college-educated employees) have traditionally been the most reluctant to organize. Unlike European union movements, American organized labor has avoided the formation of a political party and has remained within the framework of the two-party system. By 1996 the number of strikes in the United States had reached its lowest level in 50 years; at the end of the decade, however, a tighter labor market and more aggressive union leadership led to a resurgence of strikes against such major companies as Northwest Airlines, General Motors, and United Parcel Service.

In the Third World

Organized labor in the Third World, although generally small numerically, has played a disproportionately large role in political developments in those countries. Many union movements in the underdeveloped countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, rising on the wave of nationalism, have led anticolonial movements toward political independence; the leaders of many newly independent nations have owed their rise largely to the support of workers they have organized. In Latin America, too, labor unions are a powerful force, constituting as they do the most important mass political organizations in the nations of that region.

International Organizations

Internationally, world trade unionism was split after 1949 between two rival organizations: the, largely Communist, World Federation of Trade Unions (WTFU), originally set up in 1945, and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), founded in 1949 by member unions that had withdrawn from the WTFU in protest against its Communist domination. The international federations are recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO), and there is close cooperation between the ICFTU and UNESCO in the field of education. The International Labor Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations; some of its aims include raising living standards, improving working conditions, gaining recognition of the right to collective bargaining, and the protection of workers' health.

union shop: see closed shop and open shop.

trade union: see union, labor.

labor union: see union, labor.

industrial union, labor union composed of all the workers in a given industry, regardless of skill, craft, or occupation (as opposed to the craft union, in which all members are of one skill, such as carpenters or electricians). The industrial union is sometimes referred to as a vertical union, since it accepts workers from the least to the most skilled as members. Prior to the 1870s, unions in the United States had been organized on a craft basis; a modified form of industrial union appeared with the Knights of Labor. The successor to that organization, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), organized new members on the basis of their craft. But the idea of an industrial union survived with the Industrial Workers of the World, which was founded in 1905. Adopting a policy of accepting everyone, skilled or unskilled and regardless of race, sex, or creed, the IWW's membership ranged from mine workers, to even migrant agricultural workers. Within the AFL in the 1930s one segment of unions, under the leadership of John L. Lewis, began to organize in the mass production industries, i.e., to form industrial unions. These unions, initially named the Committee for Industrial Organization, were expelled (1936) and were renamed (1938) the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The newly formed CIO was basically an industrial union. Three kinds of industrial unions were recognized—those consisting of all employees working on the same commodity (e.g., electrical workers or brewery workers), those using the same tools to work on different materials (e.g., textile and aluminum workers), and all employees of a given factory regardless of their particular skill. Following the merger of the AFL with the CIO in 1955, an Industrial Union Department (IUD) was organized within the merged organization. Although industrial unions have traditionally attempted to organize manufacturing or mining employees, such unions as the Service Employees International Union are now attempting to organize workers in service industries and the public sector. But organizing office workers who perform different tasks in various offices in separate buildings has been much harder than organizing a large automobile factory where all employees work on the same assembly line. See bibliography under American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

credit union, cooperative financial institution that makes low-interest personal loans to its members. It is usually composed of persons from the same occupational group or the same local community. Funds for lending come from the sale of shares to members and from the members' savings deposits. Cooperative banking originated in Germany in the middle of the 19th cent.; it was developed by Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and later was particularly adapted to rural communities by F. W. Raiffeisen. In the United States, the Credit Union National Association (founded 1934) has been instrumental in organizing credit unions. Credit unions are important because they provide loans to blue-collar workers and small farmers, who would otherwise have difficulty securing credit at reasonable interest rates. Under provisions of the Credit Union Act of 1934, U.S. credit unions are chartered by their respective states or by the federal government.

company union: see union, labor.

World Conservation Union: see International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), organization that seeks to upgrade moral life, especially through abstinence from alcohol. The National WCTU of the United States was founded (1874) in Cleveland, Ohio, as a result of the Woman's Temperance Crusade that spread through the Midwest at that time. Frances Willard, the group's second president (1879-98), was responsible for the organization (1883) of the World WCTU, which now has branches in approximately 70 countries. The organization has worked for public education against the use of alcohol and for legislation to prohibit its sale. It has also supported research and education concerning tobacco, narcotics, and other potentially dangerous drugs. As of 1992, the National WCTU had 50,000 members. Its official organ is the weekly Union Signal.

Western Union Telegraph Company, enterprise created (1851) to provide telegraphic communications services in the United States. Originally known as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, Western Union (as it was renamed in 1856 after a series of acquisitions) built the nation's first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861. The company briefly entered the telephone field but, after losing a court battle with Bell Telephone in 1879, turned completely to telegraph communications. Western Union's telegraph business grew rapidly, reaching its height (more than 200 million telegrams) in 1929. By 1943, after acquiring Postal Telegraph and some 500 other competitors, Western Union was easily the largest company in its field. During the 1960s, faced with steeply declining telegraph revenues and rising costs, the company moved into a number of other related services, such as time-sharing computer systems, teleprinters, and satellite communications. The Western Union Corp., formed in the 1970s, eventually sold off its communications businesses and emerged in the early 1990s as the New Valley Corp., a banking services and real estate company. Another part of the original company, Western Union Financial Services, became a subsidiary of First Data Corp. in 1995 and now specializes in electronic money transfers and business communications services; it continued to transmit telegrams until 2006.

Western European Union (WEU), European security and defense organization. It was set up in Brussels in 1955 as a defensive, economic, social, and cultural organization, consisting of Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands; Portugal and Spain became members in 1988, and Greece joined in 1995. After France had refused to ratify a treaty providing for a European Defense Community, the WEU was created as a substitute solution embodied in the Paris Pacts. Since Western military cooperation had been dominated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Western economic coordination by the European Economic Community and later the European Free Trade Association, the primary function of the WEU was to supervise the rearmament of Germany, as provided for under the Paris Pacts. In 1960, the WEU transferred its cultural and social activities to the Council of Europe. Under the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the WEU was envisioned as the future military arm of the European Union (EU); it remained institutionally autonomous. In 1995 the Eurocorps, a joint force drawn from some of the WEU members, became operational. An additional 18 nations from central Europe, NATO, and/or the EU joined the WEU as associate members, observers, or associate partners in the 1990s. In 1999 the EU voted to absorb all the functions of the WEU in preparation for making the EU a defensive and peacekeeping military organization as well as a social and economic one.

Universal Postal Union (UPU), specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters at Bern, Switzerland. Established in 1875 following adoption of the Universal Postal Convention, it is one of the oldest extant international governmental organizations. The union was associated with the United Nations in 1947. The Universal Postal Congress, the governing body, usually meets every five years to consider the activities of the executive council of 40 members elected on a geographical basis and meeting yearly. Countries that belong to the union form a unified postal territory with easy international exchange of mail. The union also provides technical assistance and advice in attempts to improve postal service, especially in developing countries. The UPU has 191 member nations.

Union, Fort: see Fort Union.

Union, Act of. For the union of England and Scotland (1707), see Great Britain; for the union of Ireland (1800) with Great Britain, see Ireland.

Union party, in American history.

1 Coalition of Republicans and War Democrats in the election of 1864. Abraham Lincoln was renominated for President with Andrew Johnson, the Democratic war governor of Tennessee, as his running mate. The Union party was hardly more than a name; very few Democrats were attracted, and the party reverted to its Republican designation in 1868.

2 In 1936 various radical groups discontented with the New Deal formed the Union party at a convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Father Charles E. Coughlin, Dr. Francis E. Townsend, and Gerald L. K. Smith, who had succeeded the recently assassinated Huey Long as the leader of the Share-the-Wealth movement, were the prime movers in the new party. William Lemke, a Republican congressman from North Dakota, was put forward as presidential nominee, and Thomas C. O'Brien of Boston, a labor lawyer, was nominated for Vice President. Although some believed that the Union ticket might deprive Franklin Delano Roosevelt of many normally Democratic votes, Lemke failed to get on the ballot in many states and polled only 882,000 votes. The strange coalition that had created the Union party fell apart immediately, and the party disappeared.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Rus. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, former republic. It was established in 1922 and dissolved in 1991. The Soviet Union was the first state to be based on Marxist socialism (see also Marxism; communism). Until 1989 the Communist party indirectly controlled all levels of government; the party's politburo effectively ruled the country, and its general secretary was the country's most powerful leader. Soviet industry was owned and managed by the state, and agricultural land was divided into state farms, collective farms, and small, privately held plots.

Politically the USSR was divided (from 1940 to 1991) into 15 constituent or union republics—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia (see Belarus), Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia (see Kyrgyzstan), Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia (see Moldova), Russia, Tadzhikistan (see Tajikistan), Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan—ostensibly joined in a federal union, but until the final year or so of the USSR's existence the republics had little real power. Russia, officially the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR), was only one of the constituent republics, but the terms "Russia," the "USSR," and the "Soviet Union" were often used interchangeably.

Early Years

The USSR was the successor state to the Russian Empire (see Russia) and the short-lived provisional government of Russia. The history of the provisional government, the Revolution of 1917, Soviet Russia's withdrawal from World War I, and the Russian Civil War are covered in the articles Russian Revolution and Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of.

Many policies indicative of the entire tenure of the Soviet rule appeared during the formative stage of the state. The torture or summary execution of real or imagined opponents, a "Red Terror" to subdue the Whites during the civil war, became institutionalized in the form of the secret police, who sought to suppress dissidence and opposition. Such tactics were employed even within the Communist party, as periodic "purges" were carried out to rid the party of dissident members. The denigration of rural peasants in favor of soldiers and urban dwellers was another tendency of the Soviet regime. Millions of peasants in the Don region starved to death from 1918 to 1920 as the army confiscated grain for its own needs and the needs of the urbanites.

The fundamental policy, however, of the Communist party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from its beginning was complete socialization. Between 1918 and 1921, a period called "war communism," the state took control of the whole economy, mainly through the centralization of planning and the elimination of management from factories. This led to inefficiency and confusion, and in 1921 there was a partial return to the market economy with the adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP ushered in a period of relative stability and prosperity, and in 1922 the treaty of union formally joined Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, and Transcaucasia (divided in 1936 into the Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijan republics).

At this time the USSR comprised Russia and the remainder of the Russian Empire (for its earlier history see Russia) as it had emerged from the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing civil war. The civil war had been complicated by Allied intervention and by war (1920) with Poland. The peace treaty (1921) with Poland (see Riga, Treaty of), the declarations of independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and the seizure by Romania of Bessarabia had greatly reduced the size of the former Russian Empire, establishing what the governments of Western Europe called a cordon sanitaire (quarantine belt) separating Communist Russia from the rest of Europe.

Temporarily accepting this quarantine, Vladimir I. Lenin and the other leaders of the Soviet Union set about repairing the damage caused by the revolution and the civil war. In 1922, Germany recognized the Soviet Union (see Rapallo, Treaty of), and most other Western nations except the United States followed suit in 1924. Also in 1924 a constitution was adopted based theoretically on the dictatorship of the proletariat and founded economically on the public ownership of the land and the means of production according to the revolutionary proclamation of 1917.

The Stalin Era

A struggle for leadership followed Lenin's death in early 1924; Joseph V. Stalin and Leon Trotsky were the two main protagonists, with Stalin emerging victorious by the late 1920s. Stalin's program called for a more gradual transformation of Soviet society than did Trotsky's and had as its primary objective the consolidation of communism in the USSR rather than Trotsky's ideal of immediate world revolution. Later Stalin adopted more radical measures. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union continued to guide the Communist parties abroad through the Third International, or Comintern.

The First Five-Year Plan

At home the New Economic Policy instituted in 1921 was replaced by full government planning with the adoption of the first Five-Year Plan (1928-32). The plan was drawn up by Gosplan (the state planning commission), setting goals and priorities for virtually the entire economy and emphasizing the production of capital and not consumer goods. A system of collective and state farms was imposed over widespread peasant opposition, which was expressed notably in the slaughter of livestock. Those comparatively prosperous peasants (called kulaks) who refused to join the new agricultural institutions were "liquidated" by drastic means. More than 5 million peasant households were eliminated, their property was confiscated, and most of the peasants were sent as forced laborers to Siberia. By the end of the 1930s, 99% of the cultivated land was in collective farms (the system of state farms was established successfully only after World War II). Industrialization was accelerated, and the production of desperately needed industrial raw materials and capital equipment was stressed at the expense of consumer goods. One of the major results of the successive Five-Year Plans was the spectacular industrial and agricultural development of the Urals, Siberian USSR, and Central Asian USSR.

The level of literacy, very low in 1917, was steadily raised in all parts of the country, and free medical and social services were extended to the population. At the same time, the state (and behind it, the CPSU) increased its hold over all political, social, and cultural aspects of life. Education and media of public information passed under state control. Freedom of movement was severely restricted. All criticism of public policy, if not authorized by the state, was banned. The secret police became a major instrument of state control, and much power was given to the civil service. The system of controls gave rise to a large and powerful bureaucracy, called the "new class" by some analysts.

Religious bodies were severely persecuted in the early years of the Soviet Union, but in the mid-1930s there was a measure of relaxation in official policy, probably because antireligious propaganda in the schools had already taken effect among the younger generation. However, relations with the Roman Catholic Church and with the Jewish community remained hostile. Relations were also strained with the West Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Conservatism and Purges

The mid-1930s saw a conservative trend in official attitudes toward culture: family life was emphasized again, and divorces and abortions were made difficult to obtain; great men and events in pre-1917 Russian history were extolled in literature (e.g., in works by Aleksey N. Tolstoy) and in films (especially those of Sergei Eisenstein); and experimentation in education gave way to a return to structure and discipline. In 1936 the Stalin constitution was issued, and it included many features of Western democracies, which, however, were more window-dressing than true indications of the distribution of power in the Soviet system.

The CPSU continued to control the government and run the country, and Stalin, as the Wisest of the Wise, was firmly in control of the party. Following the murder (1934) of Sergei M. Kirov, one of Stalin's closest associates, and the announcement of the discovery of an alleged plot against Stalin's regime headed by the exiled Trotsky, there began a series of purges that culminated in the great purge from 1936 to 1938. The armed forces, the CPSU, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public "show trials." Among the many thousand victims of the purges were such prominent CPSU leaders as Grigori E. Zinoviev, Lev B. Kamenev, Karl Radek, Nikolai Bukharin, and Aleksey I. Rykov and military figures like Marshal Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky. Independent influence in society was thus ended, and monolithic unity under Stalin was achieved by 1939.

Pre-World War II Foreign Relations

Soviet foreign policy, long hampered by the hostility of the nations of Europe and America and by pervasive mutual distrust, was carried out first by Georgi Chicherin and from 1930 by Maxim M. Litvinov. In 1933 the United States recognized the USSR, and in 1934 the Soviet Union was admitted into the League of Nations. In the mid-1930s the USSR sought friendly relations with its neighbors, declared its renunciation of imperialistic expansion, and advocated total disarmament. Soviet-controlled Communist parties in other countries became friendlier to more moderate socialists and to liberals and in 1936 joined leftist Popular Front coalitions in France and Spain. The Western nations did not invite the USSR to take part in the negotiations with Germany leading to the Munich Pact (1938), and a radical shift in Soviet foreign policy ensued. V. M. Molotov replaced Litvinov as foreign minister.

World War II

On Aug. 23, 1939, the USSR concluded a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany, which shortly afterward invaded Poland, precipitating World War II. Soviet troops also entered (Sept., 1939) Poland, which was divided between Germany and the USSR. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were occupied (1940) by the Soviet Union, and in mid-1940 were transformed into constituent republics of the USSR. Finland opposed Soviet demands, and the Finnish-Russian War of 1939-40 resulted; it ended in a hard-earned Soviet victory. Finland ceded territory, which was organized into the Karelo-Finnish SSR (which in 1956 became part of the RSFSR as the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic). Romania was forced (1940) to cede Bessarabia and N Bukovina, and the Moldavian SSR was created. In Apr., 1941, a nonaggression treaty with Japan was signed.

Although defense preparations were accelerated (probably in anticipation of eventual war with Germany), when Germany attacked on June 22, 1941, the Soviet Union was caught by surprise. Romania, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Italy joined in the invasion of the USSR. By the end of 1941 the Germans had overrun Belorussia and most of Ukraine, had surrounded Leningrad (St. Petersburg), and were converging on Moscow. The success of this first German offensive was in part due to the 1935-39 purges of the army and the party, which had robbed the USSR of many of its best military minds and political organizers.

A Soviet counter-offensive saved Moscow, but in June, 1942, the Germans launched a new drive directed against Stalingrad (now called Volgograd) and the Caucasus petroleum fields. Stalingrad held out, and the surrender (Feb. 2, 1943) of 330,000 Axis troops there marked a turning point in the war. The Soviets drove the invaders back in an almost uninterrupted offensive and in 1944 entered Poland and the Balkan Peninsula. Early in 1945, German resistance in Hungary was overcome, and Soviet troops marched into East Prussia. The converging Soviet armies then closed in on Berlin in a climactic drive. On May 2, 1945, Berlin fell; on May 7 the USSR together with the Western Allies accepted the surrender of Germany.

The Soviet victory was obtained at the great price of at least 20 million lives (including civilian casualties) and staggering material losses. The United States contributed much aid, about $9 billion, to the USSR through lend-lease. Understandings concerning the conduct of war and postwar policies had been reached by the USSR, the United States, and Great Britain at the Moscow Conferences (1941-47), the Tehran Conference (1943), the Yalta Conference (1945), and the Potsdam Conference (1945).

In accordance with a previous agreement, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on Aug. 8, 1945, two days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. A swift campaign brought Soviet forces deep into Manchuria and Korea by the date (Sept. 2, 1945) Japan surrendered. As a direct result of the war, the USSR received the southern half of Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands from Japan; the northern part of East Prussia from Germany; and some additional territory from Finland. By agreements in 1945 with Poland and Czechoslovakia the USSR also vastly increased the area of the Belorussian and Ukrainian republics.

The Cold War

Cooperation between the USSR and the Western powers—already shaky during the war—ceased soon after the armistice, and relations between the Soviet Union and the United States (which emerged from the war as the two chief powers in the world) became increasingly strained, leading to the international tension of the cold war. Friction became particularly acute in the jointly occupied countries of Germany, Austria, and Korea and in the United Nations (of which the USSR was a charter member), preventing the conclusion of joint peace treaties with Germany, Austria, and Korea and agreements over reparations and the control of nuclear weapons.

Increasing Soviet influence in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania and the continued tight control of East Germany created fears in the Western world of unlimited Soviet expansion, as did the creation (1947) of the Cominform (which in a limited sense was the successor of the Comintern). The USSR, on the other hand, justified its policies by claiming that it was merely responding to encirclement by hostile capitalist nations. In 1948, Yugoslavia declared its independence from the "Soviet bloc," as the Communist nations of East Europe came to be known. In 1948 and 1949 the USSR unsuccessfully tried to prevent supplies from reaching the sectors of Berlin occupied by the Western Allies. In 1949, the USSR recognized the newly established Communist government of China, and a 30-year alliance was signed in early 1950. Relations with the Western powers worsened considerably after the outbreak of the Korean War (1950-53), which the West ascribed to Soviet instigation.

Internally, the goals of the immediate postwar era were the reconstruction of the Soviet economy and the reimposition of Stalin's dictatorship. A fourth Five-Year Plan was released, concentrating as usual on heavy industrial development, which had shifted east due to the war. Despite impressive developments in industry, Soviet agriculture suffered greatly in the postwar period, as a drought in 1946 caused a massive famine. Collective farming proved once again to be hugely inefficient. The development of military technology continued rapidly, however, and the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic device in 1949.

Stalin managed to reassert his personal rule once more, ending the period of relatively free interaction in Soviet society mandated by the war effort. Millions of soldiers and ethnic minorities who had come into contact with the Germans and the Allies were deported to Central Asia and Siberia. Stalin instituted another round of anti-Semitic purges, killing many prominent Jewish writers. Propaganda extolling Communism's achievements reached new heights, as the government claimed Russian origins for nearly everything, even the American pastime of baseball.

The Khrushchev Era

The death of Stalin on Mar. 5, 1953, ushered in a new era in Soviet history. "Collective leadership" at first replaced one-man rule, and after the arrest and execution (June, 1953) of Lavrenti P. Beria the power of the secret police was curtailed. Soviet citizens began to gain a greater degree of personal freedom and civil security. Georgi Malenkov succeeded Stalin as premier, while Nikita S. Khrushchev, as first secretary of the central committee of the CPSU, played an increasingly important role in policy planning. In 1955, Malenkov was replaced as premier by Nikolai Bulganin. At the 20th All Union Congress (Feb., 1956), Khrushchev bitterly denounced the dictatorial rule and personality of Stalin in a secret speech that was later obtained by foreigners. Khrushchev replaced Bulganin as premier in 1958, thus becoming leader of both the government and the CPSU; he modified some of the more dictatorial aspects of Stalin's rule, but the CPSU continued to dominate all facets of Soviet life.

Domestic Policy under Khrushchev

Khrushchev retained many of Stalin's basic economic policies, but there were important changes. Management of the economy (especially industry) was decentralized (1957) in an attempt to reduce the inefficiency and delays resulting from central bureaucratic control. Numerous national ministries were disbanded. In agriculture, vast tracts of virgin land (especially in Central Asian USSR and W Siberian USSR) were opened to the cultivation of grain, notably wheat; taxation of collective farmers' private plots was reduced; and the Machine Tractor Stations, established in the late 1920s and 30s as a means of supervising the collective farms by controlling their use of farm machinery, were abolished in 1958 and their equipment sold to the collectives. Somewhat larger amounts of consumer goods were manufactured. In 1957-58 the noted author Boris L. Pasternak was prevented from accepting his Nobel Prize for his novel Doctor Zhivago because it contained a general criticism of life in the Soviet Union immediately after the Revolution.

Foreign Relations under Khrushchev

Foreign policy became more flexible; the Soviet Union negotiated a peace treaty with Austria (1955), established diplomatic relations with West Germany (1955), restored the Porkkala naval base to Finland (1955), dissolved the Cominform (1956), allowed foreigners to travel in the USSR, and set up cultural exchanges with Western nations. In addition, it was considered proper beginning in 1955 to form alliances with, and give aid to, the non-Communist nations of the Middle East, especially Egypt and Syria, and other non-Communist underdeveloped countries.

Relations with the Communist countries of Eastern Europe were formalized and strengthened by the establishment of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Treaty Organization, or Warsaw Pact. In June, 1956, a revolt against Soviet influence in Poland was defeated by the Polish army, but the Poles managed to gain some concessions from Moscow; an uprising in Hungary in Oct., 1956, was crushed ruthlessly by Soviet troops.

In the technological race between the Soviet Union and the West (principally the United States), the USSR exploded (1953) a hydrogen bomb; announced (1957) the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles; orbited (1957) the first artificial earth satellite (called Sputnik); and in 1961 sent Yuri Gagarin in the first manned orbital flight. In Sept., 1959, Khrushchev undertook a 10-day tour of the United States. In May, 1960, a four-power (USSR, United States, France, and Great Britain) summit conference scheduled for Paris was aborted when a U.S. reconnaissance airplane ("U-2") was shot down in the Soviet Union and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to apologize for the aerial spying. The USSR participated in the international negotiations on nuclear disarmament and agreed (1958) to a voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests, but resumed testing in 1961. In 1963, the USSR signed a milestone treaty with the United States and Great Britain banning atmospheric nuclear tests.

The question of divided Berlin (a focal point of the cold war) remained unresolved through several rounds of negotiations and a number of "Berlin crises," particularly the 1961 controversy over the erection of the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin. In June, 1964, the Soviet Union signed a separate peace treaty with East Germany.

At the 22d CPSU congress in 1961 the attack on Stalin was continued, and the reputations of many purge victims of the 1930s were rehabilitated. Stalin's body was removed from its place of honor in the Kremlin next to Lenin's; his name was erased from the geography of the USSR (e.g., Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd), and pictures and statues of him were removed. Also at the 22d congress the Sino-Soviet conflict (which had begun in the late 1950s) emerged, stated at first in terms of a dispute with Albania (a close ally of China). Among other things, China had accused the USSR of betraying Marxism-Leninism by attempting to negotiate with the West, while Khrushchev and his administration insisted that Communist expansion could be accomplished in conjunction with a policy of "peaceful coexistence" with states having different social and economic systems.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

In Oct., 1962, despite seemingly improved relations with the West, the USSR came into sharp conflict with the United States over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. The United States demanded the removal of the missiles and blockaded the island to keep out Soviet ships. Backing down, Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles, and the crisis passed. Some analysts maintain that the Cuban Missile Crisis marked a turning point in U.S.-Soviet relations because the USSR realized the determination of the United States to protect what it considered its vital interests. In 1963 a "hot line" (direct and instantaneous teletype communications) was set up between the heads of government of the USSR and the United States.

The Brezhnev Era

In a well-prepared and bloodless move by CPSU leaders, Khrushchev was ousted from his positions of power Oct. 14-15, 1964. He was replaced as first secretary of the CPSU by Leonid I. Brezhnev (who in 1960 had become chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet) and as premier by Alexei N. Kosygin. The official reasons given for Khrushchev's ouster were his advanced age (70) and his declining health. The real reason was dissatisfaction with the policies and style of his government. Specifically, Khrushchev was criticized for the inadequate performance of the economy, especially the agricultural sector (there had been a bad harvest in 1963); for the humiliation of the USSR in the Cuban Missile Crisis; for the widening rift with China; and for his flamboyant personal style, which it was said created a "cult of personality." Several persons closely associated with Khrushchev also lost their posts; they included his son-in-law Alexei I. Adzhubei, the editor of the government newspaper Izvestia.

In July, 1964, Anastas I. Mikoyan succeeded Brezhnev as chairman of the presidium; Mikoyan was replaced in Dec., 1965, by Nikolai V. Podgorny. The new leaders stressed collective leadership (as opposed to Khrushchev's one-man rule), but because of his position at the head of the CPSU Brezhnev held an advantage and by 1970 was clearly the most powerful person in the country, followed at a considerable distance by Kosygin. In 1966 the position of first secretary of the CPSU again was called general secretary (as it had been until 1952), and the presidium of the supreme soviet reverted to the name politburo (short for political bureau). In the later 1960s the official attitude toward Stalin became somewhat less hostile. In internal affairs the new leaders stressed economic development, and in foreign affairs they generally pursued peaceful coexistence with the West (although there were several major indirect confrontations).

Domestic Policy under Brezhnev

Claiming that Khrushchev's policy of decentralizing administration had been ill advised, his successors reestablished 28 national ministries in 1965. However, at the same time a major program to decentralize decision-making in industry was begun. Under the system devised by Yevsei Liberman, an economist, individual firms made their own decisions on levels of production based on prevailing prices, and their efficiency was judged individually on the amount of profit they made. By the early 1970s the vast majority of industrial firms were operating on this basis. The new system allowed much more latitude to the individual firms, but they still had to operate within the constraints of the overall Five-Year Plans, which established the basic course of the Soviet economy, and of the annual national government budget.

Industrial production (and the productivity of individual workers) increased steadily after 1964, but not as rapidly as the leadership desired. To make up for a growing deficiency of technology, a number of major contracts were signed (beginning in the late 1960s) with Western firms to build factories and other installations in the USSR. With the exception of a bad harvest in 1972, agricultural production increased dramatically. The dramatic world oil price rises in 1973-74 and 1979 buoyed the economy, and the construction of a natural gas pipeline to Germany promised further economic expansion.

During the Brezhnev era leading writers, scientists, and intellectuals protested certain aspects of Soviet life, especially curbs on the free flow of ideas, corruption in government, and inefficiency. Although the dissidents were small in number and had little popular support, they were treated harshly by the government, many being sentenced to terms in prison or being forced into exile. The leading dissidents included the writers Andrei Sinyavsky (whose pen name was Abram Tertz), Yuri Daniel (whose pen name was Nikolai Arzhak), Anatoly V. Kuznetsov (who defected to Great Britain in 1969), Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (a Nobel Prize winner for Literature who was forced to leave the country in early 1974), Aleksandr Ginzburg, Yuri Galanskov, and Andrei Amalrik; the editor Aleksandr Tvardovski; the Nobel Prize winning nuclear physicist Andrei D. Sakharov; the geneticist Zhores A. Medvedev (who left the country in 1973 and was not allowed to return); the economist Viktor Krasin; retired general Petro Grigorenko; and the historian Pyotr Yakir. Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, defected to the West in 1967 and took up residence in the United States.

From the later 1960s many Jews asked to leave the country, mainly in order to settle in Israel. For a time the government made emigration for them exceptionally difficult (for instance, by charging a high "emigration tax" allegedly to cover the cost of the person's education in the USSR), but in the early 1970s considerable numbers of Jews were able to emigrate (partly because the emigration tax was suspended). In 1974 the USSR agreed to ease its emigration policy in return for favored-nation trade status with the United States. Contributing to disquiet in the country were the members of several ethnic groups (notably the Lithuanians, Latvians, and Tatars) who vociferously demanded increased autonomy for their people.

Foreign Relations under Brezhnev

Formal Soviet-U.S. relations continued to be good after 1964, but there was a serious indirect conflict in Vietnam (where the USSR gave North Vietnam much material aid, but did not send troops, to oppose U.S. forces active in South Vietnam). Other indirect conflicts included the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (where the Soviet Union backed the Arabs rhetorically but gave them little material assistance), the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 (when the USSR aided India and the United States backed Pakistan), the 1973 Arab-Israeli War (when U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, believing that the Soviet Union was about to send troops to back the Arab side, instituted a worldwide precautionary alert of U.S. forces), the Angolan, Mozambican, and Ethiopian civil wars (where the U.S. backed rebellions against Soviet-backed governments), and the Contra war in Nicaragua.

In 1968, Soviet relations with the Communist nations of Eastern Europe reached a critical stage when Soviet troops (and forces of some of the other Warsaw Treaty Organization members) invaded (Aug. 21) Czechoslovakia in a successful effort to curb the trend toward liberalization there (and indirectly to reduce Czechoslovakia's increasing contact with Western European nations). Brezhnev declared (in what became known as the "Brezhnev doctrine") that Communist countries had the right to intervene in other Communist nations whose actions threatened the international Communist movement. Romania and Yugoslavia explicitly denounced the Brezhnev doctrine.

The Sino-Soviet conflict worsened after 1964. In 1969 there were numerous border clashes, including a major one over control of Damansky Island in the Ussuri River. Both countries enlarged their border forces and maintained them in the early 1970s despite somewhat less tense relations.

The Era of Détente

In 1969, the USSR, the United States, and about 100 other nations signed a treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons to countries not possessing them. Strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) between the Soviet Union and the United States began in 1969, and they were continuing in 1974. When President Nixon visited Moscow in 1972, an agreement partially limiting strategic arms was signed (an agreement that was renewed during Nixon's 1974 visit to the USSR), along with accords on cooperation in space exploration, environmental matters, and trade. By this time Soviet-U.S. relations were described as having entered an era of détente, and the cold war was said to have ended. In 1973, Brezhnev toured the United States and met with Nixon.

A major objective of Soviet foreign policy in the early 1970s was to gain official recognition of the post-World War II settlement in Europe. In 1970 a landmark treaty with West Germany was signed (ratified in 1972) confirming existing boundaries in Europe (notably the eastern border of East Germany) and also renouncing the use of force to settle disputes. In 1972 the USSR, the United States, Great Britain, and France signed an accord regularizing the position of Berlin.

In 1973 a European security conference, which the USSR hoped would also help make permanent the status quo in Europe, formally opened. A second phase of SALT talks began, as well as negotiations for a mutual and balanced reduction of forces in Europe. The USSR gave considerable assistance to underdeveloped countries during the Brezhnev era. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War the Soviet Union played a major role in equipping both the Egyptian and Syrian armies. At Tashkent in 1966, Kosygin mediated a dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

In the early 1970s there was a notable increase in both the size and quality of the Soviet military, especially the navy. In the "space race" with the United States, the USSR did not place a man on the moon (as the United States did in 1969) but made other important, but less spectacular, exploratory probes of space. In 1975 a symbolic linkup in space between Soviet and U.S. spacecraft capped the era of détente.

The USSR made further gains with the Helsinki Accords, which declared permanent all postwar European boundaries. The Accords, however, also contained provisions on human rights, and the Soviet government drew international criticism for harassing or imprisoning citizens who tried to monitor Soviet compliance with the Accords. A new "Brezhnev" constitution was promulgated in 1977, but differed little from the preceding Stalin constitution.

Détente Ends

Brezhnev's foreign policy during the 1970s supported Marxist revolutionary governments in Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Ethiopia, Grenada, Nicaragua, and South Yemen, but it stumbled in applying the Brezhnev doctrine to Afghanistan. A 10-year occupation of that country (1979-89) pitted the forces of the USSR against the same sort of indigenous, nationalistic guerrilla army that the United States had faced in Vietnam. The United States' response to the invasion was swift; it shelved the second SALT agreement, suspended grain shipments, and led a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The U.S. and European governments, despite domestic opposition, placed new intermediate range Pershing II missiles in Europe, and a staunch anti-Communist, Ronald Reagan, was elected President of the United States. Détente was over.

Almost in synchrony with the breakdown in international relations, the Stalin-era leadership began to fail. Kosygin resigned and died in 1980. Brezhnev grew ill. His declining health slowed the Soviet response to the 1980-82 challenge posed by Poland's Solidarity union. Soviet economists, who had been secretly relying on doctored economic figures and raw material exports to gloss over the economy's deficiencies, could not disguise the USSR's failure to meet its Five-Year Plan goals. Fortuitous increases in gold and oil prices in the 1970s had camouflaged the decay, but the USSR possessed few manufacturing exports, the lifeblood of all developing economies. Life expectancy for men began to decline due to alcohol abuse, a fact so embarrassing to the government that it stopped issuing life expectancy figures.

The Gorbachev Era

Brezhnev died in 1982 and was replaced by Yuri Andropov, the recent head of the KGB. He tried to reform the nation through campaigns against alcoholism and absenteeism, but he died after little more than a year in office. He was replaced by party loyalist Konstantin Chernenko, who also died after a year in office. An Andropov protege, Mikhail Gorbachev, became general secretary of the CPSU in Mar., 1985.

Glasnost and Perestroika

Gorbachev inherited a country with daunting economic and foreign policy troubles. In the first nine months of his tenure he replaced 40% of the regional-level leadership. Like his mentor Andropov, he unleashed a vigorous campaign against alcohol use. Like Khrushchev, he approved measures aimed at loosening social restraints. The measures, which Gorbachev called glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring"), were expected to invigorate the Soviet economy by increasing the free flow of goods and information.

Glasnost received an immediate challenge when on Apr. 26, 1986, a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded, spewing radioactive material over a large area. The Soviet government initially tried to cover up the extent of the disaster, but Gorbachev dramatically ended the cover-up by removing all controls on reporting. The basic poverty of the Soviet people, the waste of the country's resources, the unpopularity of the Afghan conflict were openly discussed for the first time.

Rapid and radical changes began. Dissidents like Andrei Sakharov were released from detention and allowed to voice their views. The USSR signed an agreement to withdraw from Afghanistan, a process that was completed by Feb., 1989. The CPSU held its first conference in 50 years in 1988, further denouncing Stalin and his policies. In Mar., 1989, the first openly contested elections since 1917 were held. In May, Gorbachev visited Beijing, signaling the end of the Sino-Soviet split. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews left the country after emigration restraints were removed. Over 400,000 had moved to Israel by 1993, and substantial numbers also moved to the United States.

Dissolution of the Union

Gorbachev's criticisms of the Communist leaders of Eastern Europe who were not attempting reforms similar to glasnost hinted that the Brezhnev doctrine would be ignored. Frantic, last-minute efforts at reform by Eastern European leaders in the summer and fall of 1989 at best only slowed the collapse of their Communist governments. The loss of dominance over Eastern Europe stunned conservatives in the military and the CPSU, and Gorbachev came under increasing pressure to slow glasnost and perestroika.

The country's troubles continued. The economy did not respond as expected, actually shrinking 4% in 1990. The citizens of the Baltic states and Georgia demanded independence from the USSR. Miners in Donets and Kuznetsk Basins went on strike, a severe blow to a party and a government that had always claimed to represent the workers. Arms reductions with the United States and a pact that accepted the reunification of Germany were signed. In desperation, a group of senior officials led by Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, Vice President Gennady Yanayev, and the heads of the KGB and the Interior Ministry, detained Gorbachev at his dacha in the Crimea on Aug. 18, 1991, just two days before he was scheduled to sign a treaty granting greater autonomy to the USSR's constituent republics.

In three days, the August Coup collapsed, as junior military leaders and the presidents of the republics, most notably Boris Yeltsin of the RSFSR, led popular resistance to the attempted coup. The coup leaders were arrested, and Gorbachev was returned to his position as head of state. De facto power, however, had passed to Yeltsin and the presidents of the other republics.

On Aug. 23, 1991, Yeltsin banned the CPSU and seized its assets. On Aug. 24, Yeltsin recognized the independence of the Baltic states; on the same day Ukraine declared itself an independent nation. The Supreme Soviets of the other republics soon passed similar resolutions. In September the Congress of People's Deputies voted for the dissolution of the USSR, and discussions began which led to the Dec. 8 founding of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On Dec. 25, Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR and was not replaced; on the same day the United States recognized the remaining republics of the USSR as independent nations. On Dec. 26 the government of the Russian Republic (see Russia) occupied those offices of the USSR located within its boundaries.

Union of South Africa: see South Africa.

Union of Burma: see Myanmar.

Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, nondenominational, coeducational Christian seminary; opened 1836, chartered 1839. Originally Presbyterian, Union Theological Seminary has been free of denominational control since the early 1890s. It shares cooperative educational programs with Columbia Univ., Jewish Theological Seminary of America, General Theological Seminary, and other institutions. The seminary's Burke Library, the preeminent theological library in the Western Hemisphere, contains over 1 million volumes, including a number of special collections, and is part of the Columbia Univ. library system. Union Theological Seminary was a major contributor to the revival of Protestant theology in the 1930s and 1940s; through the work of such distinguished faculty as Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr it played important roles in the ecumenical movement and the development of Neo-orthodoxy.

Union Pacific Railroad, transportation company chartered (1862) by Congress to build part of the nation's first transcontinental railroad line. Under terms of the Pacific Railroads Act, the Union Pacific was authorized to build a line westward from Omaha, Nebr., to the California-Nevada line, where it was to connect with the Central Pacific RR—which was to be built simultaneously from Sacramento, Calif. Each railroad company, after completion of an initial 40 mi (64 km) of track, was to be granted 6,400 acres (2,589 hectares) of public lands and a loan of from $16,000 to $48,000 for each mile of track laid. In 1864, Congress doubled the land grant, considerably eased the terms of government loans, and allowed the two railroad companies to borrow private capital. Also in 1864 and again in 1866 the Central Pacific was authorized to build eastward beyond the Nevada line.

In 1865 construction of the Union Pacific was begun from Omaha westward, and a long succession of harrowing construction problems, Indian troubles, and delays were encountered. Nevertheless, on May 10, 1869, the Union Pacific joined the Central Pacific, NW of Ogden, Utah, thus connecting the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean by rail and completing the nation's first transcontinental railroad. The joining of the roads was marked in ceremony by the driving of a golden spike.

Construction of both roads involved tremendous profiteering, and in 1872 the scandal involving the Crédit Mobilier of America, an ephemeral holding company to which most of the Union Pacific's liquid assets had been transferred (1867), was unearthed. The fraud, combined with later mismanagement and overextensions, left the Union Pacific with heavy financial burdens, and in 1893 the company went into receivership. It was reincorporated (1897) as the Union Pacific RR Company in Utah, and under the management of Edward H. Harriman the railroad was expanded, vastly improved, and stabilized.

n 1901, Harriman added the Southern Pacific (see Southern Pacific Company) and the Central Pacific to his expanding railroad empire, and his spectacular attempt to control the Northern Pacific led to the formation of the Northern Securities Company, a huge rail monopoly that controlled transportation throughout the Northwest. Under pressure from President Theodore Roosevelt, the giant holding company was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 1904. Four years later the court ordered the Union Pacific RR Company to relinquish its control of the Southern Pacific, and in 1913 the separation was completed.

The Union Pacific also acquired large holdings in railroads in the East and later gained control over Western motor-coach lines. In 1936 the railroad initiated the development of Sun Valley, Idaho, into a popular winter resort. The Union Pacific acquired the Missouri Pacific and Western Pacific RRs in 1982 and M-K-T RR in 1988. In 1995 it agreed to purchase the Chicago and North Western RR, and it acquired the ailing Southern Pacific in 1996. By 1997 the much-expanded railroad was plagued by accidents, late arrivals, and congested rail lines; federal regulators intervened, allowing two competing railroads to share Union Pacific's tracks, to keep shipments moving (the track-sharing order was lifted in 1998). Today the railroad, with around 33,000 mi (53,000 km) of track in the West, Midwest, and Gulf Coast regions, is a subsidiary of the highly diversified Union Pacific Corporation; in 1999 the corporation split the railroad operation into three semiautonomous units (for the northern, southern, and western sections of the system).

Union League Clubs, in U.S. history, organizations formed throughout the North in the Civil War after the military defeats and Republican election losses of 1862. A convention at Cleveland (May, 1863) provided for national headquarters of the Union League at Washington. The clubs distributed war literature, raised money for soldier relief, and recruited both white and black volunteers for the army. In the South after the war, the league, led by officials of the Freedmen's Bureau, carpetbaggers, and scalawags, developed into a strong Republican political organization that controlled the black vote. Its influence was curtailed by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and vanished with the end of Reconstruction. The Union League Clubs of New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago survived as conservative social organizations.

Union City. 1 Residential city (1990 pop. 53,762), Alameda co., W Calif., in an agricultural region; inc. 1959 with the merger of Decoto and Alvarado districts. Metal, plastic, paper, and food products, wool, and consumer goods are produced. A tool-and-die factory and an iron foundry are also there. Union City grew rapidly in the late 20th cent.; its population more than tripled between 1970 and 1990.

2 City (1990 pop. 58,012), Hudson co., NE N.J., on the Palisades overlooking the Hudson River, directly opposite New York City; inc. 1925. This densely populated city has many small firms, most of them in the embroidery field. Other industries produce fabricated metal products, consumer and electrical goods, machinery, apparel, and transportation equipment.

3 City (1990 pop. 10,513), seat of Obion co., W Tenn., near the Ky. line; inc. 1867. It is a trade, processing, and shipping center in a livestock, grain, cotton, and fruit-growing region. Tires and transportation equipment, fabricated metal products, and fireplaces are manufactured. Three Civil War battles were fought nearby, and the city has a Civil War cemetery, a monument to unknown Confederate dead, and an eternal-flame memorial.

Union, industrial township (1990 pop. 50,024), Union co., NE N.J.; settled 1749 by colonists from Connecticut, set off from Elizabethtown 1808. Steel and metal products and paint are among its various manufactures. Union was the site of a Revolutionary battle in 1780. It is the seat of Kean Univ. of New Jersey.

Teamsters Union, U.S. labor union formed in 1903 by the amalgamation of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union. Its full name is the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen, and Helpers of America (IBT). In 2005 the union had 1.4 million members; the majority of its members are truck drivers. The Teamsters has been one of the few unions to support Republican candidates, backing Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

The strongest Teamster centers at the turn of the 19th cent. were Chicago, New York City, Boston, and St. Louis. Chicago, with about half the membership, was the scene of an unsuccessful 1905 strike against Montgomery Ward & Co., which resulted in a decline in union membership. In 1907, Daniel J. Tobin, a Boston Teamster unconnected with that strike, became president. He held the position until 1952, and his policy of avoiding sympathetic action on behalf of other unions and zealously guarding the expenditure of union funds helped the Teamsters to grow. In 1933, the union undertook the organization of the rapidly growing long-distance trucking industry. By threatening to stop deliveries to and from employers who refused to come to terms, the Teamsters were able to gain contracts not only in trucking but in related enterprises.

In the early 1940s Tobin successfully withstood a threat to his leadership from a Minneapolis local. But Tobin's successors ran into problems with corruption. The revelations of a Senate investigating committee led the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) to expel the IBT in 1957. Dave Beck, Tobin's successor, was sent to prison in 1958 for larceny and income tax violations. The evasiveness of Beck and his successor, Jimmy Hoffa, before Senate committees was an important factor in the passage (1959) of the Landrum-Griffin Act.

Opposition to Hoffa within the union forced him to accept a monitorship over his presidency until 1961, but did not seriously impair his power. Hoffa himself was sent to prison in 1967, but retained the presidency until 1971, when he resigned and was succeeded by Frank E. Fitzsimmons. Massive IBT contributions to President Richard Nixon's reelection committee led to Hoffa's release in 1971. Hoffa attempted a comeback but disappeared in 1975; he is believed to have been killed by organized-crime figures.

In the 1970s and 80s, a number of Teamster leaders were convicted of irregularities in handling pension funds and of accepting bribes from employers to stop strikes or reduce labor costs. In 1977 allegations of control by organized crime forced the Teamsters to yield oversight of the Central States Pension fund to outsiders. Fitzsimmons died in 1981. His successor, Roy Williams, was convicted the same year of bribing a U.S. Senator. Jackie Presser, who became president in 1982, was indicted in 1985 for embezzling union funds and giving crime figures no-show jobs. The IBT reentered the AFL-CIO in 1988.

In 1989, with William McCarthy as union president, the Teamsters settled a federal racketeering suit that accused officials of allowing known crime figures to control and exploit the union. A court-appointed trustee supervised elections that resulted (1991) in the election of a reform candidate, Ronald R. Carey, a former New York parcel service driver and local president. (This was the first time the IBT membership was able to vote for union president; previously the national presidents were chosen by the IBT leadership.) In the 1990s the union faced tougher times. Deregulation in the trucking industry after 1980 created many low-cost nonunion firms and led to generally lower wages and benefits. Carey narrowly won reelection over James P. Hoffa, the son of Jimmy Hoffa, in 1996, but then lost office in 1997 over allegations of failing to stop illegal campaign fund-raising; he was later acquitted of lying to investigators about the scheme. Hoffa won a 1998 election to replace Carey and was reelected in 2001. In a split with AFL-CIO executives over union priorities, the Teamsters and two other large unions left the organization in 2005.

Service Employees International Union (SEIU), labor union representing U.S. and Canadian workers in health care (doctors, nurses, health technicians), public services (government workers, school employees), building services (janitors, elevator operators, security officers) and other areas. Founded in Chicago in 1921 as the Building Service Employees International Union to represent largely immigrant janitors, it expanded during the 1930s to include hospital workers and public employees and was renamed in 1968. By the early 21st cent. the SEIU had more than 1.8 million active members, and was the largest and most rapidly growing union in North America. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., the SEIU has more than 300 local affiliates and 25 state councils. From 1980 to 1995 its president was John J. Sweeney, who left to head the AFL-CIO. In 1996 he was succeeded by Andrew Stern, who nine years later led the SEIU to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO and, with several other unions, form the Change to Win Federation.

Réunion, island and overseas department of France (2005 est. pop. 777,000), c.970 sq mi (2,510 sq km), one of the Mascarene Islands, in the Indian Ocean c.430 mi (690 km) E of Madagascar. Saint-Denis (the capital) and Le Port (the leading port) are the chief cities.

Land, People, and Economy

The island is composed mainly of one active and several extinct volcanoes; its highest point is Le Piton des Neiges (10,069 ft/3,069 m). Le Piton de la Fournaise in S Réunion is one of the earth's most active volcanoes. Settlement and cultivation are concentrated in the coastal lowlands. Most of the inhabitants are Roman Catholic and speak a creole patois. Since the 19th cent. sugar has been by far the island's chief product and export. Molasses, vanilla, tobacco, tropical fruits, and rum are also produced.

History

Réunion was known to the Arabs and was visited by the Portuguese in the early 16th cent. The island was uninhabited until settled by the French c.1642; its present mixed population is descended from the French settlers and their East African, South Asian, and Indochinese slaves (after 1848, when slavery was abolished, indentured laborers). At first a penal colony, Réunion became a post of the French East India Company in 1665. In the 18th cent. the island was an exporter of coffee. From 1810 to 1814 Réunion was held by Great Britain. After 1815, when coffee no longer could be produced competitively, sugarcane became the main crop. In 1947 the status of Réunion was changed from a colony to an overseas department. In the 1980s and 90s, the citizens of Réunion sought greater political autonomy and better wages and working conditions.

Protestant Union, in German history, an alliance of German Protestant leaders of cities and states, founded in 1608 for the avowed purpose of defending the lands, person, and rights of each individual member. Also known as the Evangelical League, it came into being after the Holy Roman emperor attempted (1607) to reestablish Roman Catholicism in Donauwörth and after a majority of the Reichstag, meeting in Augsburg, declared that renewal of the religious peace of 1555 (see Augsburg, Peace of) should be conditional on the restoration of all church lands appropriated by the Protestant princes after 1552. A Catholic League, headed by Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria, was formed shortly afterward. The Protestant Union was weakened from the start by the absence of such powerful Protestant princes as the elector of Saxony, and it never operated very effectively. In 1621, three years after the outbreak of the Thirty Years War, the union went out of existence. In French history, the alliance (1573-74) of Huguenot cities, districts, and nobles in the Wars of Religion is also known as the Protestant Union.

Patiala and East Punjab States Union, former union of states, 10,099 sq mi (26,156 sq km), NW India. The capital was Patiala (1991 pop. 253,706). Comprising six former princely states, it was the only area in India in which the Sikhs had a majority. It was merged with Punjab state in 1956.

Pan-American Union, former name for the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS). It was founded (1889-90) at the first of the modern Inter-American Conferences (see Pan-Americanism) as the Commercial Bureau of the American Republics and changed to the International Bureau of the American Republics in 1902. The name Pan-American Union was adopted in 1910. Created to promote international cooperation, it offered technical and informational services to all the American republics, served as the repository for international documents, and was responsible through subsidiary councils for the furtherance of economic, social, juridical, and cultural relations. In 1948 it was made the General Secretariat for the OAS, although the name was not dropped until 1970. The anniversary of its founding is Pan-American Day.

Latin Monetary Union. In 1865, France, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland (joined in 1868 by Greece) agreed to regulate their national currencies on a uniform basis, thus making it freely interchangeable. Several other countries joined informally. The fluctuations of gold and silver created difficulties, and the union, further disrupted by World War I, was disbanded in 1927.

Kalmar Union, combination of the three crowns of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, effected at Kalmar, Sweden, by Queen Margaret I in 1397. Because the kingship was elective in all three countries, the union could not be maintained by inheritance. Nationalist forces used the election procedure to modify terms of the union. Margaret's successors controlled Sweden only for brief periods; the accession (1523) of Gustavus I as king of Sweden dissolved the union. The union of Denmark and Norway lasted, however, until 1814.

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), an international organization est. 1919 to advance the chemical sciences and contribute to the application of chemistry to the service of humanity. IUPAC is an association of national chemistry associations that is reponsible for the standardization of weights, measures, symbols, and terminology. It also publishes definitive atomic and chemical data and establishes standard methods for use in various laboratories.

International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) or World Conservation Union, international organization founded in 1948 to encourage the preservation of wildlife, natural environments, and living resources. Its members include private individuals, nongovernmental organizations and governments. The IUCN promotes research in the preservation of threatened species, ecology, sustainable development, and environmental law, education, and training.

International Telecommunication Union (ITU), specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters at Geneva. It was created in 1934 as a result of the merging of the International Telegraph Union (est. 1865; the first international governmental organization) and the International Radiotelegraph Union (est. 1906); there are now 191 member nations. The union functions under the International Telecommunication Convention, which was adopted in 1947 and revised in 1967. The goal of the organization is to extend and improve all forms of international telecommunication by allotting radio frequencies, by encouraging the establishment of low rates, and by perfecting communications in rescue operations. The ITU is governed by the plenipotentiary conference at which all members are represented; it normally meets once every four or five years. The conference elects an administrative council of 29 members. Conferences for the regulation of telecommunication in space have been among ITU's more recent activities.

International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), former U.S. labor union formed in 1900 by the amalgamation of seven local unions. At the turn of the century most of the workers in the garment industry were Jewish immigrants, whose attempts at organization were hampered by clashes between anarchists and socialists; this heritage of strife was carried over into the ILGWU, and in its early years many members were sympathetic to various radical movements. Despite these conflicts the union grew rapidly in its first years. However, the depression of 1903 and the open-shop campaign launched by the newly formed National Association of Manufacturers wiped out many hard-won gains. By 1908 it appeared as if the union might be merged with the United Garment Workers, then the American Federation of Labor (AFL) union of men's tailors. At that point the union launched two spectacular and successful mass strikes (1909-11) in the garment district of New York City. As a result of the strikes, the dress manufacturers agreed to deal with the ILGWU and its affiliates. That settlement also embodied the famous Protocol of Peace, which was proposed by Louis D. Brandeis and was based on the concept of perpetual economic peace in the union. Although that concept was in sharp contrast to the radical trade-union philosophy then prevailing among garment workers, it served as a model of cooperation between labor and management. The Communists' drive for control of the union during the 1920s was defeated by moderates under the leadership of David Dubinsky. Although the struggle seriously hurt the ILGWU, the union benefited by the labor policies of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and membership rose to 300,000 in 1942. In 1937 the ILGWU briefly joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO); it then temporarily became an independent union and finally rejoined the AFL in 1940. Under the presidency of David Dubinsky, the ILGWU grew into one of the nation's most powerful and progressive unions, with a wide range of member benefits. The ILGWU gained the respect of the manufacturers by its willingness to assist employers in the industry with loans and technical assistance. Dubinsky retired in 1966. The following year a $1 million Dubinsky Foundation was established, with the goal of making grants to causes and institutions in line with ILGWU objectives. From 1968 to the early 1990s the union lost more than 300,000 workers as a result of low cost imports and the transfer of factories overseas. In 1995 the 125,000-member ILGWU merged with the 175,000-member Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers' Union to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged in 2004 with HERE (the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union) to UNITE HERE. The combined union has more than 440,000 active members.

French Union, 1946-58, political entity established by the French constitution of 1946. It comprised metropolitan France (the 90 departments of continental France and Corsica); French overseas departments, territories, settlements, and United Nations trusteeships; French colonies, which became overseas departments of France; and associate states (protectorates), which became autonomous. The union replaced the colonial system. In 1954, the associate states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia withdrew from the union, and in 1956 Morocco and Tunisia, also associate states, became independent. The French Community replaced the French Union in 1958.

Fort Union National Monument: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

Fort Union, trading post of the American Fur Company, erected in 1828 near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, on the Mont.-N.Dak. line; it controlled converging routes of travel from the Rocky Mts. For c.40 years it was the most important post in the U.S. fur country and was under the control of American fur trader Kenneth McKenzie. When the U.S. army assumed control in 1867, Fort Union was torn down and Fort Buford, a military post, erected nearby. Fort Union Trading Post is a national historic site (see National Parks and Monuments, table).

European Union (EU), name given since the ratification (Nov., 1993) of the Treaty of European Union, or Maastricht Treaty, to the European Community (EC), an economic and political confederation of European nations, and other organizations (with the same member nations) that are responsible for a common foreign and security policy and for cooperation on justice and home affairs. Twenty-seven countries—Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany (originally West Germany), Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden—are full members of the organizations of the EU.

Organizational Structure

The EC, which is the core of the EU, originally referred to the group of Western European nations that belonged to each of three treaty organizations—the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). In 1967 these organizations were consolidated under a comprehensive governing body composed of representatives from the member nations and divided into four main branches—the European Commission (formerly the Commission of the European Communities), the Council of the European Union (formerly the Council of Ministers of the European Communities), the European Parliament, and the European Court of Justice.

Although the EU has no single seat of government, many of its most important offices are in Brussels, Belgium. The European Commission, which has executive and some legislative functions, is headquartered there, as is the Council of the European Union; it is also where the various committees of the European Parliament generally meet to prepare for the monthly sessions in Strasbourg, France. In addition to the four main branches of the EU's governing body, there are the Court of Auditors, which oversees EU expenditures; the Economic and Social Committee, a consultative body representing the interests of labor, employers, farmers, consumers, and other groups; and the European Council, a consultative but highly influential body composed primarily of the president of the Commission and the heads of government of the EU nations and their foreign ministers.

Evolution

The history of the EU began shortly after World War II, when there developed in Europe a strong revulsion against national rivalries and parochial loyalties. While postwar recovery was stimulated by the Marshall Plan, the idea of a united Europe was held up as the basis for European strength and security and the best way of preventing another European war. In 1950 Robert Schuman, France's foreign minister, proposed that the coal and steel industries of France and West Germany be coordinated under a single supranational authority. France and West Germany were soon joined by four other countries—Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Italy—in forming (1952) the ECSC. The EEC (until the late 1980s it was known informally as the Common Market) and Euratom were established by the Treaty of Rome in 1958. The EEC, working on a large scale to promote the convergence of national economies into a single European economy, soon emerged as the most significant of the three treaty organizations.

The Brussels Treaty (1965) provided for the merger of the organizations into what came to be known as the EC and later the EU. Under Charles de Gaulle, France vetoed (1963) Britain's initial application for membership in the Common Market, five years after vetoing a British proposal that the Common Market be expanded into a transatlantic free-trade area. In the interim, Britain had engineered the formation (1959) of the European Free Trade Association. In 1973 the EC expanded, as Great Britain, Ireland, and Denmark joined. Greece joined in 1981, and Spain and Portugal in 1986. With German reunification in 1990, the former East Germany also was absorbed into the Community.

The Single European Act (1987) amended the EC's treaties so as to strengthen the organization's ability to create a single internal market. The Treaty of European Union, signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in 1992 and ratified in 1993, provided for a central banking system, a common currency to replace the national currencies (the euro, see European Monetary System), a legal definition of the EU, and a framework for expanding the EU's political role, particularly in the area of foreign and security policy. The member countries completed their move toward a single market in 1993 and agreed to participate in a larger common market, the European Economic Area (est. 1994), with most of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) nations. In 1995, Austria, Finland, and Sweden, all former EFTA members, joined the EU, but Norway did not, having rejected membership for the second time in 1994.

A crisis within the EU was precipitated in 1996 when sales of British beef were banned because of "mad cow disease" (see prion). Britain retaliated by vowing to paralyze EU business until the ban was lifted, but that crisis eased when a British plan for eradicating the disease was approved. The ban was lifted in 1999, but French refusal to permit the sale of British beef resulted in new strains within the EU. In 1998, as a prelude to their 1999 adoption of the euro, 11 EU nations established the European Central Bank. The euro was introduced into circulation in 2002 by 12 EU nations; additional EU nations have since adopted it.

The EU was rocked by charges of corruption and mismanagement in its executive body, the European Commission (EC), in 1999. In response the EC's executive commission including its president, Jacques Santer, resigned, and a new group of commissioners headed by Romano Prodi was soon installed. In actions taken later that year the EU agreed to absorb the functions of the Western European Union, a comparatively dormant European defense alliance, thus moving toward making the EU a military power with defensive and peacekeeping capabilities.

The installation in Feb., 2000, of a conservative Austrian government that included the right-wing Freedom party, whose leaders had made xenophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic pronouncements, led the other EU members to impose a number of sanctions on Austria that limited high-level contacts with the Austrian government. Enthusiasm for the sanctions soon waned, however, among smaller EU nations, and the issue threatened to divide the EU. A face-saving fact-finding commission recommended ending the sanctions, stating that the Austrian government had worked to protect human rights, and the sanctions were ended in September.

In 2003 the EU and ten non-EU European nations (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus, and Malta) signed treaties that resulted in the largest expansion of the EU the following year, increasing the its population by 20% and its land area by 23%. Most of the newer members are significantly poorer than the largely W European older members. The old and new member nations at first failed to agree on a constitution for the organization; the main stumbling block concerned voting, with Spain and Poland reluctant to give up a weighted system of voting scheduled for 2006 that would give them a disproportionate influence in the EU relative to their populations. In Oct., 2004, however, EU nations signed a constitution with a provision requiring a supermajority of nations to pass legislation. The constitution, which needed to be ratified by all members to come into effect, was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005, leading EU leaders to pause in their push for its ratification.

Meanwhile, in 2003 the EU embarked, in minor ways, on its first official military missions when EU peacekeeping forces replaced the NATO force in Macedonia and were sent by the United Nations to Congo (Kinshasa); the following year the EU assumed responsibility for overseeing the peacekeepers in Bosnia. EU members also took steps toward developing a common defense strategy independent of NATO, and agreed in 2004 to admit Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. José Manuel Barroso succeeded Prodi as president of the European Commission late in 2004. Accession talks with Turkey were partially suspended in Dec., 2006, over the issue of Turkish relations with Cyprus because Turkey was unwilling to open its ports to Cypriot trade unless the EU eased its trade restrictions on North Cyprus.

The EU opted for incremental reforms over a new constitution in 2007, when member nations signed the Lisbon Treaty. The treaty, slated to come into force in 2009 after ratification by all EU nations, would reorganize the European Council, establish a single EU foreign policy official, and reform the EU's system of voting, among other changes. (The reforms would be phased in through 2017.) In June, 2008, however, Irish voters—the only national electorate given the opportunity to ratify the treaty—rejected it in a referendum, a potentially fatal setback.

European Payments Union: see European Monetary Agreement.

Council of the European Union, branch of the governing body of the European Union (EU) that has the final vote on legislation proposed by the European Commission and deliberated by the European Parliament. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the Council was established as the Council of Ministers of the European Communities in 1967, when the EU's predecessor, the European Community, was formally constituted. Its name was changed to the Council of the European Union in 1993.

The council is composed of one minister from the government of each EU nation. Membership is fluid, with each government sending the minister appropriate to the subject then under consideration by the council. The foreign minister is generally regarded as the coordinator and main representative of each government's delegation. The presidency of the council rotates among the member nations. Much of the council's work is prepared by a general secretariat and the Committee of Permanent Representatives, or COREPER, composed of officials from the national governments. Although unanimity of the council is still required in some cases, the Single European Act (1987) expanded the council's ability to make decisions based on a majority vote. Votes of council members are weighted according to the size of the nations they represent.

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, accredited institution of higher education; in New York City; coeducational; chartered and opened in 1859. Founded by Peter Cooper, it pioneered in evening engineering and art schools; day schools were added in 1900. Today it includes schools of engineering, art, and architecture, a division of adult education, and a faculty of humanities and social sciences. There are no tuition, application, matriculation, or graduation fees for U.S. residents. The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, was founded in 1897 as part of Cooper Union by Sarah, Eleanor, and Amy Hewitt, granddaughters of Peter Cooper. Since 1967 the museum, still located in New York City, has been a division of the Smithsonian Institution.

Consumers' Union, product testing and rating organization founded (1936) to provide consumers with information and counsel regarding major retail goods and services. Through its monthly Consumer Reports (circulation c.4.5 million) and its Internet site (c.325,000 subscribers), the union reports on a diverse range of products, from major appliances and automobiles to health-care and family-planning aids. The organization, whose headquarters are in Yonkers, N.Y., also represents consumer interests at government hearings and at international meetings.

Constitutional Union party, in U.S. history, formed when the conflict between North and South broke down the older parties. The Constitutional Union group, composed of former Whigs and remnants of the Know-Nothings and other groups in the South, was organized just before the election of 1860. Delegates from 20 states attended the party convention at Baltimore in May, 1860, and John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, were nominated for President and Vice President. The party recognized "no political principle but the Constitution of the country, the union of the states and the enforcement of laws." The party carried Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia in the election.

Benelux Economic Union, economic treaty among Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. It arose out of a customs convention signed in 1944, but was not fully established until 1958. The union was established to promote free movement of workers, capital, goods, and services in the Benelux region. All three countries were also founding members of what has become the European Union (EU), which has implemented these same reforms. Benelux was the first entirely free international labor market, but its goal of merging the fiscal and monetary systems of the three countries was only largely fulfilled when most EU nations replaced their currencies with the euro (2002).

Arab Maghreb Union: see under Maghreb.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nonpartisan organization devoted to the preservation and extension of the basic rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Founded (1920) by such prominent figures as Jane Addams, Helen Keller, Judah Magnus, and Norman Thomas, the ACLU grew out of earlier groups that had defended the rights of conscientious objectors during World War I. Its program is directed toward three major areas of civil liberties: inquiry and expression, including freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion; equality before the law for everyone, regardless of race, nationality, sex, political opinion, or religious belief; and due process of law for all. Its most significant and successful activities have involved court tests of important civil liberties issues. Since its founding, the ACLU has participated directly or indirectly in almost every major civil liberties case contested in American courts. Among these are the so-called Scopes monkey trial in Tennessee (1925), the Sacco-Vanzetti case (1920s), the federal court test (1933) that ended the censorship of James Joyce's Ulysses, and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) school desegregation case. In the late 1970s the ACLU defended the right of a neo-Nazi group to march in Skokie, Ill. The ACLU has about 275,000 members in its state organizations. The national office, located in New York City, also supports lobbying and educational activity on behalf of civil liberties issues.

African Union (AU), international organization established in 2002 by the nations of the former Organization of African Unity (OAU). The AU is the successor organization to the OAU, with greater powers to promote African economic, social, and political integration, and a stronger commmitment to democratic principles. The 53 nations of Africa are all members; the AU's headquarters are at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Designed somewhat along the lines of the European Union, the AU, when fully realized, will have a General Assembly, Executive Council, Pan-African Parliament, African Central Bank (and eventual common currency), African Monetary Fund, and other organs and agencies. The Constitutive Act of the AU was adopted at Lomé, Togo, in 2000, the act was ratified in 2001, and in July the OAU held its last summit as the AU came into existence. The OAU continued to function, however, during a yearlong transition period, until the first official summit of the AU was held in July, 2002. The Pan-African Parliament, based in Johannesburg, South Africa, was inaugurated in 2004, initially as a purely advisory body; the Peace and Security Council was established later the same year.

Arrangement under which workers are required to join a particular union within a specified period of time after beginning employment. Such an arrangement differs from the closed shop in that the employer's choice of new employees is not restricted to union members. Advocates of the union shop argue that it prevents workers from enjoying the benefits of unionism without bearing their share of the costs. Union shops are uncommon in most countries, but they are both legal and common in the U.S. and Japan. In the U.S., workers in an enterprise usually choose, by majority vote, a single union to represent them, though in some states right-to-work laws prohibit requiring union membership as a condition of employment, thus forbidding both the union shop and the closed shop.

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Association of workers in a particular trade, industry, or plant, formed to obtain improvements in pay, benefits, and working conditions through collective action. The first fraternal and self-help associations of labourers appeared in Britain in the 18th century, and the era of modern labour unions began in Britain, Europe, and the U.S. in the 19th century. The movement met with hostility from employers and governments, and union organizers were regularly prosecuted. British unionism received its legal foundation in the Trade-Union Act of 1871. In the U.S. the same effect was achieved more slowly through a series of court decisions that whittled away at the use of injunctions and conspiracy laws against unions. The founding of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886 marked the beginning of a successful, large-scale labour movement in the U.S. The unions brought together in the AFL were craft unions, which represented workers skilled in a particular craft or trade. Only a few early labour organizers argued in favour of industrial unions, which would represent all workers, skilled or unskilled, in a single industry. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was founded by unions expelled from the AFL for attempting to organize unskilled workers, and by 1941 it had assured the success of industrial unionism by organizing the steel and automotive industries (see AFL-CIO). The use of collective bargaining to settle wages, working conditions, and disputes is standard in all noncommunist industrial countries, though union organization varies from country to country. In Britain, labour unions displayed a strong inclination to political activity that culminated in the formation of the Labour Party in 1906. In France, too, the major unions became highly politicized; the Confédération Générale du Travail (formed in 1895) was allied with the Communist Party for many years, while the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail is more moderate politically. Japan developed a form of union organization known as enterprise unionism, which represents workers in a single plant or multiplant enterprise rather than within a craft or industry.

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Trade agreement by which a group of countries charges a common set of tariffs to the rest of the world while allowing free trade among themselves. It is a partial form of economic integration, intermediate between free-trade zones, which allow mutual free trade but lack a common tariff system, and common markets, which both utilize common tariffs and allow free movement of resources including capital and labour between members. Well-known customs unions include the Zollverein, a 19th-century organization formed by several German states under Prussian leadership, and the European Union, which passed through a customs-union stage on the path to fuller economic integration. Seealso European Community; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; North American Free Trade Agreement; World Trade Organization.

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Credit cooperative formed by a group of people with some common bond who, in effect, save their money together and make low-cost loans to each other. The loans are usually short-term consumer loans, mainly for automobiles, household needs, medical debts, and emergencies. Credit unions generally operate under government charter and supervision. They are particularly important in less developed countries, where they may be the only source of credit for their members. The first cooperative societies providing credit were founded in Germany and Italy in the mid-19th century; the first North American credit unions were founded by Alphonse Desjardins in Lévis, Quebec (1900), and Manchester, N.H. (1909). The Credit Union National Association (CUNA), a federation of U.S. credit unions, was established in 1934 and became a worldwide association in 1958.

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U.S. temperance-movement organization. Founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1874, it used educational, social, and political means to promote legislation. Its president (1879–98) was Frances Willard (1839–1898), an effective speaker and lobbyist who also led the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union from its founding in 1883. The WCTU was instrumental in promoting nationwide temperance and in the eventual adoption of Prohibition.

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Former U.S. telegraph company and contemporary provider of electronic financial transactions. From its foundation in 1851 as a company formed to build a telegraph line from Buffalo, N.Y., to St. Louis, Mo., in 1856 the expanding business was reorganized as the Western Union Telegraph Co. By the end of 1861 Western Union had built the first transcontinental telegraph line. The company introduced singing telegrams in 1933. Western Union continued to grow, absorbing competitors such as Postal Telegraph Inc. in 1943. As telegraphy was superseded by other methods of telecommunication, Western Union diversified into teletypewriter services, money orders, and mailgrams. It launched the telecommunications satellite Westar 1 in 1974 and was operating five satellites by 1982. In 1988 the company was reorganized as Western Union Corp. to handle money transfers and related services. After declaring bankruptcy in 1993, it sold its financial services arm in 1994 to First Financial Management Corp., and in 1995 that company merged with First Data Corp. The renamed Western Union Financial Services, Inc., became a world leader in electronic (including Internet) transactions.

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Association of 10 European countries to coordinate matters of European security and defense. The WEU was formed in 1955 as an outgrowth of the Brussels Treaty of 1948. Composed of Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Britain, it works in cooperation with NATO and the European Union and is administered by a council of the foreign affairs and defense ministers of the member countries. There are also several associate members, observers, and associate partners. It is headquartered in Brussels.

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(Jan. 1, 1801) Legislative agreement uniting Great Britain and Ireland under the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. After the unsuccessful Irish revolt of 1798, the British prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, decided that the best solution to the Irish problem was a union to strengthen the connection between the two countries. The Irish parliament resisted the proposal, which called for its abolition, but votes bought by cash or honours ensured passage of the agreement in 1800. The union remained until the recognition of the Irish Free State (excluding six of the counties of the northern province of Ulster) by the Anglo-Irish treaty concluded on Dec. 6, 1921; the union officially ended on Jan. 15, 1922.

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or Soviet Union

Former republic, eastern Europe and northern and central Asia. It consisted, in its final years, of 15 soviet socialist republics that gained independence at its dissolution: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia (now Belarus), Estonia, Georgia (now Republic of Georgia), Kazakhstan, Kirgiziya (now Kyrgyzstan), Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia (now Moldova), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. It also contained 20 autonomous soviet socialist republics: 16 within Russia, 2 within Georgia, 1 within Azerbaijan, and 1 within Uzbekistan. Capital: Moscow. Stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and encompassing some 8,650,000 sq mi (22,400,000 sq km), the Soviet Union constituted the largest country on Earth, having a maximum east-west extent of about 6,800 mi (10,900 km) and a maximum north-south extent of about 2,800 mi (4,500 km). It encompassed 11 time zones and had common boundaries with 6 European countries and 6 Asian countries. Its regions contained fertile lands, deserts, tundra, high mountains, some of the world's longest rivers, and large inland waters, including most of the Caspian Sea. The coastline on the Arctic Ocean extended 3,000 mi (4,800 km), while that on the Pacific was 1,000 mi (1,600 km) long. The U.S.S.R. was an agricultural, mining, and industrial power. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, four socialist republics were established on the territory of the former Russian Empire: the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. These four constituent republics established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922, to which other republics subsequently were added. A power struggle begun in 1924 with the death of communist leader Vladimir Lenin ended in 1927 when Joseph Stalin gained victory. Implementation of the first of the Five-Year Plans in 1928 centralized industry and collectivized agriculture. A purge in the late 1930s resulted in the imprisonment or execution of millions of persons considered dangerous to the state (see purge trials). After World War II, with their respective allies, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. engaged in the Cold War. In the late 1940s the U.S.S.R. helped to establish communist regimes throughout most of eastern Europe. The U.S.S.R. exploded its first atomic bomb in 1949 and its first hydrogen bomb in 1953. Following Stalin's death, it experienced limited political and cultural liberalization under Nikita Khrushchev. It launched the first manned orbital spaceflight in 1961. Under Leonid Brezhnev liberalization was partially reversed, but in the mid-1980s Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev instituted the liberal policies called glasnost and perestroika. By the end of 1990 the communist government had toppled, and a program to create a market economy had been implemented. The U.S.S.R. was officially dissolved on Dec. 25, 1991.

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officially Republic of South Africa formerly Union of South Africa

Southernmost country on the African continent. The Kingdom of Lesotho lies within its boundaries. Area: 470,693 sq mi (1,219,090 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 46,888,000. Capitals: Pretoria/Tshwane (executive), Cape Town (legislative), Bloemfontein/Mangaung (judicial). Three-fourths of the population are black Africans, including the Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, and Tswana; nearly all of the remainder are of European or mixed or South Asian descent. Languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi (North Sotho), Sotho (South Sotho), Swati (Swazi), Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu (all official). Religions: Christianity (other [mostly independent] Christians, Protestant, Roman Catholic); also traditional beliefs, Hinduism, Islam. Currency: rand. South Africa has three major zones: the broad interior plateau, the surrounding mountainous Great Escarpment, and a narrow belt of coastal plain. It has a temperate subtropical climate. It is one of the world's major producers and exporters of gold, coal, diamonds, platinum, and vanadium. It is a multiparty republic with two legislative houses; its head of state and government is the president. San and Khoekhoe (Khoisan speakers) roamed the area as hunters and gatherers in the Stone Age, and the latter had developed a pastoralist culture by the time of European contact. By the 14th century, peoples speaking Bantu languages had settled in the area and developed gold and copper mining and an active East African trade. In 1652 the Dutch established a colony at the Cape of Good Hope; the Dutch settlers became known as Boers (Dutch: “Farmers”) and later as Afrikaners (for their Afrikaans language). In 1795 British forces captured the cape. In 1836 Dutch settlers seeking new land made the Great Trek northward and established (1838) the independent Boer republics of Orange Free State and the South African Republic (later the Transvaal region), which the British annexed as colonies by 1902 following the South African War. In 1910 the British colonies of Cape Colony, Transvaal, Natal, and Orange River were unified into the new Union of South Africa, which became independent and withdrew from the Commonwealth in 1961. Throughout the 20th century, South African politics were dominated by the question of maintaining white European supremacy over the country's black majority, and in 1948 South Africa formally instituted apartheid. Faced by increasing worldwide condemnation, it began dismantling the apartheid laws in 1990. In free elections in 1994, Nelson Mandela became the country's first black president. A permanent nonracial constitution was promulgated in 1997.

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officially International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America (IBT) , formerly (until 1940) International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen and Helpers of America (IBT)

Largest private-sector labour union in the U.S., representing truck drivers and workers in related industries such as aviation. It was formed in 1903 with the merger of two team-drivers' unions, and local deliverymen using horse-drawn vehicles remained the core membership until the 1930s, when intercity truck drivers became predominant. From 1907 to 1952 the union was headed by Daniel J. Tobin, who built it up from 40,000 members in 1907 to more than one million in 1950. Disclosures of corruption in the leadership led to the Teamsters' expulsion from the AFL-CIO in 1957. Between 1957 and 1988 three Teamsters presidents—Dave Beck, Jimmy Hoffa, and Roy Williams—were convicted of various criminal charges and sentenced to prison terms. (Hoffa has been missing, and presumed dead, since 1975.) While Teamsters representation of truck drivers declined with the growth of nonunion trucking companies in the 1980s, the union gained new members in clerical, service, and technology occupations. The union was readmitted to the AFL-CIO in 1987. Presidents Ron Carey (1992–99) and James P. Hoffa (1999– ), son of the former president, focused on job security and family issues.

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(1397–1523) Scandinavian union that joined the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark under the rule of a single monarch. Margaret I had become regent of the three kingdoms by 1388; she chose her grandnephew Erik of Pomerania to become their king, and he was crowned at Kalmar, Swed., in 1397. Each country kept its own laws, customs, and administration. Sweden rebelled and claimed independence under Gustav I Vasa in 1523, and Norway became a Danish province in 1536.

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United Nations agency headquartered in Geneva. Its roots can be traced to 1865, when the International Telegraph Union was established to coordinate international development of the telegraph. It acquired its present name in 1934 and became a UN specialized agency in 1947. Its activities include regulating allocation of radio frequencies, setting standards on technical and operational matters, and assisting countries in developing their own telecommunications systems.

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Political entity created by the constitution of 1946 of the Fourth Republic. It replaced the French colonial empire with a semifederal entity that absorbed the colonies (overseas departments and territories) and gave former protectorates limited local autonomy, with some voice in decision making in Paris. By the constitution of 1958, the French Union was replaced by the French Community.

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Organization of European countries, formed in 1993 to oversee their economic and political integration. It was created by the Maastricht Treaty and ratified by all members of the European Community (EC), out of which the EU developed. The successful EC had made its members more receptive to greater integration and provided a framework for unified action by member countries in security and foreign policy and for cooperation in police and justice matters. In pursuit of its major goal to create a common monetary system, the EU established the euro, which replaced the national currencies of 12 of the 15 EU members in 2002. Originally confined to western Europe, the EU enlarged to include several central and eastern European countries in the early 21st century. The EU's principal institutions are the European Community, the Council of Ministers (a forum for individual ministries), the European Commission (an administrative bureaucracy), the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice, and the European Central Bank.

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Economic union of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The three countries formed a customs union in 1948, and in 1958 they signed the Treaty of the Benelux Economic Union, which became operative in 1960. Benelux became the first completely free international labor market and contributed to the establishment of the European Economic Community.

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Organization founded by Roger Baldwin and others in New York City in 1920 to champion constitutional liberties in the U.S. It works for three basic concepts: freedom of expression, conscience, and association; due process of law; and equal protection under the law. From its founding it has initiated test cases and intervened in cases already in the courts. It may provide legal counsel, or it may file an amicus curiae brief. The Scopes trial was one of its test cases; it provided counsel for the Sacco-Vanzetti case. In the 1950s and '60s it opposed the blacklisting of supposed left-wing subversives and worked to guarantee freedom of worship and the rights of the accused. Its work is performed by volunteers and full-time staff, including lawyers who provide free legal counsel. Seealso civil liberty.

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African intergovernmental organization. It is the successor to the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The AU was established in 2002 to promote unity and solidarity among African states, spur economic development, and promote international cooperation. The OAU was established in 1963 with similar goals, and during its tenure the group mediated several border disputes on the African continent. More economic in nature and with a stronger mandate to intervene in conflicts, the AU replaced the OAU in 2002. In 2004 the AU's Pan-African Parliament was inaugurated, and the organization agreed to create a peacekeeping force. The AU's headquarters are in Addis Ababa, Eth.

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